Life of an enslaved person
The Transatlantic Slave Trade was dehumanizing and degrading, and the culture of plantations was one of oppression.
Capture in Africa
In Africa, people were captured from wide areas by African traders. Such raids would result in the selection of those who would sell at market – the young and the fit. From the earliest stages families were torn apart and this was reinforced on the plantations where members of a family could be separated or sold on at any time.
People as 'property’
People were regarded as 'property’ and were often marked with branding irons or made to wear signs or symbols to identify who they 'belonged’ to.
Impact on Africa
It is estimated that 11-12 million Africans were carried across the Atlantic to a life of slavery but this does not take into account the numbers who died before reaching the slave ships.
The effect on African societies was long-lasting. Although some African traders profited, communities were disrupted as men and women were taken from their homes and separated from their families. This displacement had a devastating effect for generations thereafter.
Working as a slave
The majority of enslaved people sold were destined to work on Caribbean or American plantations. Hundreds of people might be housed in huts in slave villages, living in very poor and unsanitary conditions. The plantation owners lived in vastly different and much more comfortable surroundings – often mansions on the plantation or as absentee landlords in Britain.
Punishment
Cruel and severe punishments were used to keep order and ensure a steady pace of work. For many slaves floggings and beatings were part of daily life. Other systems of control included houses of correction.
Domestic and skilled work
The vast majority of Africans were treated like cattle and worked in the fields but a minority were ordered to become domestic slaves, taken on as sailors or soldiers, or taught crafts and skills, such as carpentry and metalwork.
Looking at the evidence
Representations of slave life are subject to bias. Some were created by artists working for the plantation owners and thus show a somewhat sanitized view of life. Other images were made by or for abolitionists to show the cruelty of slavery.
The image of 'Rosa ordered to be flogged’ is an abolitionist’s interpretation, although the image is based on real events verified by a British Parliamentary inquiry. All such evidence raises issues of motive, reliability and provenance.
Maintaining an identity
Despite the cruelty experienced daily by many enslaved people on the plantations, they managed to maintain some of their cultural traditions such as language, religious beliefs, oral traditions and crafts.
Also of interest
- Atlantic Worlds – A gallery exploring the relationships between Britain, Africa and the Americas, 1600-1850